COURTIN MEETS WITH ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT.
If the day seemed long to Michel, to Courtin its length was intolerable; he thought that night would never come. And though he felt he ought to keep away from the rue du Marché and the adjacent streets, it was impossible to avoid airing his impatience in their neighborhood.
When evening came, mindful of his engagement with Michel, he returned to the tavern of the Point du Jour. There he found Michel awaiting him eagerly. As soon as the young man saw him he exclaimed:--
"Ah, Courtin, I am thankful to see you. I have discovered the man who followed us last night."
"Hein! what? what did you say?" asked Courtin, making, in spite of himself, a step backward.
"I have discovered him, I tell you!"
"But the man--who is he?" asked Courtin.
"A man in whom I felt sure I might trust; and you would have trusted him too in my position,--Joseph Picaut."
"Joseph Picaut!" repeated Courtin, feigning astonishment.
"Yes."
"Where did you meet him?"
"At this inn, where he is hostler, or rather, where he is playing the part of hostler."
"Why did he follow you? You can't have had the imprudence to tell him your secret? Ah, young man, young man!" exclaimed Courtin; "they may well say youth and imprudence go together. A former galley-slave!"
"That's the very reason. Don't you know why he was sent to the galleys?"
"Damn it, yes! for highway robbery."
"But it was in the time of the great war. However, that's neither here nor there. I gave him an errand to do."
"If I were to ask you what errand, you'd think me inquisitive; and yet it is my real interest in you that makes me ask, and nothing else."
"Oh! I have no reason for concealing the matter from you. I sent him to let the captain of the 'Jeune Charles' know that I should be on board at three o'clock in the morning. Well, no one has since seen Picaut or the horse--and, by the bye," added the young baron, laughing, "the horse was your pony, my poor Courtin; your pony, which I took from the farm and rode to Nantes."
"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Courtin, "then Sweetheart is--"
"Sweetheart is probably lost to you forever."
"Perhaps he has gone back to his stable," said Courtin, who, even in presence of the grand financial horizon which was opening before him, felt a profound regret for the twenty or twenty-five pistoles at which he valued his pony.
"Well, what I want to tell you is, that if, as I suppose, Joseph Picaut followed us he must now be on the watch about the neighborhood."
"What object has he?" inquired Courtin. "If he wanted to deliver you up nothing could have been easier than to bring the gendarmes here."
Michel shook his head.
"No,--do you say no?"
"I say it is not I whom he is after, Courtin; it is not on my account he watched us yesterday."
"Why so?"
"Because the price on my head would not pay him for his treachery."
"But whom else can he be spying on?" said the farmer, calling up all the vacant simplicity he was capable of imprinting on his face and accent.
"A Vendéan leader whom I was anxious to save while making my own escape," replied Michel, beginning to perceive whither Courtin's questions were leading him,--though he was not sorry to admit the latter into half his secret in order to use him when occasion came.
"Ah, ha!" exclaimed Courtin; "and you think he has discovered the hiding-place of the Vendéan leader? That would be a misfortune, Monsieur Michel."
"No; he only got to the outworks, as it were; but I am afraid, now that he is once on the scent, he may have better luck this time."
"This time,--how do you mean?"
"Why, to-night, if he watches us, he will find out I have a meeting with Mademoiselle Mary."
"Mordieu! you're right."
"And that makes me very uneasy," said Michel.
"But I shall be on the watch; and if you are followed I'll whistle in time for you to get away."
"And you?"
Courtin laughed.
"Oh! I--I don't risk anything. My opinions are well-known, thank God; and in my capacity as mayor I can have all the dangerous companions I choose."
"Evil is good sometimes," said Michel, laughing in his turn. "But listen, what time is that?"
"Striking nine from the clock at Bouffai."
"Then, come on, Courtin."
Courtin took his hat, Michel his, and they both went out and were soon at the corner where Michel had met his farmer the night before. The latter stood with his right to the rue du Marché and his left toward the alley into which opened the green door he had marked with a cross.
"Stay there, Courtin," said Michel. "I'll wait at the farther end of this alley; I don't know which way Mary means to come. If she passes you, direct her toward me; if she comes my way, do you move up nearer to us, so as to be ready in case of need."
"Don't trouble about that," said Courtin, as he settled himself on the watch.
Courtin was now at the summit of happiness; his plan had completely succeeded. In one way or another he was certain to come in contact with Mary; Mary was the intimate attendant on Petit-Pierre; he would fellow Mary when she left Michel, and he had no doubt that the young girl, unconscious of being tracked, would herself betray the hiding-place of the princess by going there.
Half-past nine o'clock ringing from all the belfries in Nantes surprised Courtin in the midst of these reflections. Their metallic vibrations were hardly stilled before he heard a light step coming up on his right; he went in that direction, and saw a young peasant-woman wrapped in a mantle and carrying a package in her hand, whom he recognized to be Mary. The young girl, seeing a strange man apparently on the watch, hesitated. Courtin went up to her and made her recognize him.
"It is all right, Mademoiselle Mary," he said, replying to her relieved gesture; "but I'm not the one you are looking for, am I? You want Monsieur le baron; well, there he is, waiting for you down there."
And he pointed with his finger to the alley. The girl thanked him with a gesture of her head and moved hastily away in the direction given her. As for Courtin, convinced that the interview would be a long one, he sat down, philosophically, on a milestone, prepared to wait. From that milestone, however, he could keep the two young people in sight while dreaming of his coming fortune, which now seemed a certainty,--for he held in Mary one end of the thread that would lead him through the labyrinth; and this time, he vowed, the thread should not break.
But he had scarcely begun to set up the scaffolding of glorious dreams on the golden clouds of his imagination, when the two young people, after exchanging a few sentences, returned in his direction. They passed in front of him; the young baron had Mary on his arm and was carrying the little package the farmer had lately seen in Mary's hand. Michel nodded to him.
"Ho, ho!" thought Courtin, "is it going to be as easy as this? There's absolutely no credit in it." And he followed the lovers on a sign from Michel, keeping at a short distance behind them.
Presently, however, he began to feel a slight uneasiness. Instead of going to the upper town, where Courtin felt instinctively that the princess was hidden, the pair turned down toward the river. The farmer followed their movements with deep anxiety. Soon, however, he began to fancy that Mary had some errand in that direction, and that Michel was only accompanying her.
Nevertheless, his anxiety again deepened when, on turning the corner of the quay, he saw the young pair making straight for the tavern of the Point du Jour, which they presently entered. Unable to restrain himself any longer he ran hastily forward and overtook the baron.
"Ah, here you are,--just in time!" said Michel.
"What is it?" asked the spy.
"Courtin, my dear fellow, I'm the happiest man on earth!"
"Why so?"
"Quick! saddle me two horses!"
"Two horses?"
"Yes."
"And Mademoiselle Mary? don't you mean to take her back?"
"No, Courtin, I shall carry her off!"
"Where?"
"To Banl[oe]uvre; where we shall make some plan to get away together."
"But will Mademoiselle Mary desert--"
Courtin stopped short; he was about to betray himself. But Michel was much too happy and excited to be distrustful.
"Mademoiselle Mary will not desert any one, my dear Courtin; we are to send Bertha in her place. Don't you see that I can't be the one to tell Bertha I do not love her?"
"Then who will tell her?"
"Don't trouble yourself about that, Courtin; somebody will tell her. Now, quick! saddle those horses!"
"Have you any horses here?"
"No, none of my own; but there are always horses, don't you understand, for those who travel for the good of the cause."
And Michel pushed Courtin toward the stable, where, in fact, two horses were munching their oats as if awaiting the young people.
Just as Michel was putting the saddle on the second horse the master of the inn came down, followed by Mary.
"I come from the South and am going to Rosny," Michel said to him, continuing to saddle one of the horses, while Courtin was saddling, but more slowly, the other. Courtin heard the password, but did not comprehend it.
"Very good," said the master of the inn, nodding his head in sign of intelligence.
Then, as Courtin seemed rather behindhand, he helped him to saddle the other horse and rejoin Michel.
"Monsieur Michel," said Courtin, making a last effort, "why go to Banl[oe]uvre instead of to La Logerie? You would be more comfortable at my house."
Michel questioned Mary by a look.
"Oh! no, no, no!" she said. "Remember, my dear friend," she whispered, "that Bertha will be certain to return there to get news of us, and to know why the vessel was not at the place agreed upon; and I wouldn't for all the world see her before the friend you know of speaks to her. I think I should die of shame and grief if I saw her just now."
At Bertha's name, which he overheard, Courtin raised his head as a horse raises his to the sound of trumpets.
"Mademoiselle does not want to go to La Logerie?" he said.
"But, Mary," said Michel, hesitating.
"What?" asked the girl.
"Who will give your sister the letter that summons her to Nantes?"
"As for that," said Courtin, "it isn't hard to find a messenger. If there is anything you want said or done, Monsieur Michel, I'll undertake it."
Michel hesitated; but he, like Mary, dreaded Bertha's first outbreak of anger. Again he looked at Mary; she replied with an assenting sign.
"Then we will go to Banl[oe]uvre; and you must take the letter," said Michel, giving Courtin a paper. "If you have anything to say to us, Courtin, you will find us there for the present."
"Ah, poor Bertha! poor Bertha!" said Mary, springing on her horse. "How shall I ever console myself for my happiness?"
The two young people were now in their saddles; they made a friendly sign to the master of the inn; Michel commended the letter once more to Courtin's care, and then they both rode away from the tavern of the Point du Jour.
At the end of the pont Rousseau they came near riding over a man who, in spite of the heat of the weather, was wrapped in a sort of mantle which almost hid his face. This sombre apparition alarmed Michel; he quickened his horse's pace and told Mary to do the same. After going about a hundred yards Michel turned round. The stranger had stopped, and, in spite of the darkness, was watching them.
"He is looking at us!" said Michel, feeling instinctively that they had just passed some great danger.
After the unknown man had lost sight of the riders he continued his way to Nantes. At the door of the Point du Jour he stopped, looked about him as if in search of some one, and saw a man reading a letter by the light of a lantern. He went up to the man, who, at the sound of his steps, looked round.
"Ah, it's you!" said Courtin. "Faith, you've just missed getting here too soon; a minute earlier and you would have found yourself in company you wouldn't have liked."
"Who were those two young people who nearly knocked me over on the bridge?"
"The very ones I mean."
"Well, what's the news,--good, or bad?"
"Both; but more good than bad."
"Is it to be to-night?"
"No; the affair is postponed."
"You mean failed, blunderer!"
Courtin smiled.
"It is true that luck has been against me since yesterday; but no matter! we must be satisfied with walking, not running, that's all. Though to-day is a failure, in view of immediate results, I wouldn't take twenty thousand francs for it."
"Ah, ha! you are sure of that?"
"Yes, very sure. The proof is that I've got hold of something already."
"What?"
"This," said Courtin, showing the letter he had just unsealed and read.
"A letter?"
"A letter."
"What's in it?" said the man in the cloak, putting out his hand to take the paper.
"One moment. We will read it together. I prefer to hold it, because it is intrusted to me for delivery."
"Well, let us read it," said the man.
They both went up to the lantern and read as follows:--
Come to me as soon as possible; you know the passwords.
Your affectionate
Petit-Pierre.
"To whom is that letter addressed?" asked the man in the cloak.
"To Mademoiselle Bertha de Souday."
"Her name is not on the cover, nor at the bottom of the page."
"Because a letter might be lost."
"And you are commissioned to deliver that letter?"
"Yes."
The man gave a second glance at the paper.
"The writing is certainly hers," he said. "Ah! if you had only allowed me to accompany you we should have her by this time."
"What does that matter, if you are sure of her later?"
"Yes, true. When shall I see you again?"
"Day after to-morrow."
"Here, or in the country?"
"At Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu; that is half way between Nantes and my house."
"I hope next time you won't stir me up for nothing."
"I promise you that."
"Try to keep your word; I keep mine. Here's the money. See, I hold it ready, so that you may not have to wait for it."
He opened his wallet and showed the farmer, complacently, a mass of bank-bills amounting probably to a hundred thousand francs.
"Oh," said Courtin, "only paper!"
"Paper, of course, but signed 'Garat;' that is a good signature."
"No matter," said Courtin; "I prefer gold."
"Well, gold you shall have," said the other, replacing the portfolio in his pocket and crossing his mantle over his coat.
If the pair had not been so engrossed in their conversation they would have seen that a peasant had climbed the wall between the street and the courtyard by the help of a cart which stood outside, and was listening to what they said, and gazing at the bank-notes with an air which implied that in Courtin's place he would have been quite satisfied with Garat's signature.
"Very good; then the day after to-morrow at Saint-Philbert," repeated the man in the cloak.
"Day after to-morrow."
"What time?"
"Evening, of course."
"Say seven o'clock. The first comer will wait for the other."
"But you'll bring the money?"
"You mean the gold? yes."
"All right."
"Do you expect to bring the matter to conclusion then?"
"I hope to. It costs nothing to hope."
"Day after to-morrow, at Saint-Philbert, seven o'clock," muttered the peasant on the wall, letting himself gently down into the street. "We'll be there." Then he added with a laugh that sounded terribly like the grinding of teeth: "When a man is branded he ought to earn his label."